Proxies & Hadouken: Fibbers, 23/04/12

Supporting Hadouken!, local band Proxies jump started the evening for the 14+, nu-rave contingent of Yorkshire. They counted us down Ramones style into Artificially Sweetened Revenge, which got the crowd going like a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Clad in big neon trainers, boys and girls paraded tubes of neon paint that progressively leaked onto their £15 Hadouken! hot-pants that they’d bought that evening. The band stirred up a perspiration-infused, mini-mosh-pit; their music laced with video game noises and vocals which begged to meet Dave Grohl.
Mid-set a crocodile with a moustache came onstage. His job appeared to be ‘crowd-pumper’ and soon the audience were inexplicably chanting “YORKSHIRE, YORKSHIRE!” ferociously, until his crowd surfing fail forced us to say see-ya-later-alligator. The paced rise in vocals impressed more in their last song Half-Time, whilst drummer Alex Binnington really warmed up the kids for Hadouken!.

As if awaiting a rockstar of gargantuan notoriety, the buzzed, fluorescent adolescents were led into Hadouken!’s set with an ethereal white light show. Eventually, they emerged through the dry ice and asked the audience “Are you ready to jump?” – I think they probably were, but they didn’t have a choice, seeing as they were thrown to the ceiling by reverberation when the bass dropped into Vessel. Soon the patriotic chant had restarted and there were giggles of glee when frontman Smith gave them their first F word of the evening.

The move into M.A.D saw lots of ‘rudeboi’ attitude, and sounds resembling a demonic child playing a comb, but as the band moved onto Oxygen the heartbeat rhythm had worked its way smoothly into the audience and it began to find control.

Pleasingly we watched the ludicrously fashionable Alice Spooner on synth give a wry smile as Smith acquired one of the popularly sported flat peak caps off a lucky fan.

Both Mecha Love, with its action movie intro, and House Is Falling, with its playful gaming tones, were well received, but nothing quite pleased the kids more than the only early song they played That Boy That Girl. The song has not lost its cheeky nature and it still gives you the urge to grab an alcopop and pull your hood up. It was a shame they didn’t accompany the throwback with any of its friends but the encore nonetheless turned up the corners of my mouth, and they finished their set with Parasite, which, if you are a not-so-nu, nu-rave-gone-drum-and-bass fan that enjoys hurling yourself against sweaty strangers, you can download for free on their website at http://hadouken.com/parasite.